Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Youth Ministry Vision Casting, Part 3

Vision is like the cure for cancer in the church. But vision applied incorrectly can do an intense amount of damage. Much like applying the wrong amount of chemotherapy, the wrong type of chemotherapy, or applying the chemotherapy at the wrong time can nearly kill or kill a cancer patient, the same could be done to the church. A church that is already hurting could be hurt far worse. Or a healthy church could be made unhealthy.

What happens if the leaders have vision but they lack strategy? Or if they have strategy but they lack vision? Or is they have both vision and strategy, but they're unable to clearly convey to others why they're doing what they're doing. There IS a right and wrong recipe to vision-casting. I strongly feel it includes the following elements and, for the most part, it needs to happen in this order:

What? People need to know they are not a random act of God. When they were created they were given a purpose.

Why? People need to understand why they're supposed to do this or that. They need to know that the plan is worth the effort and they need to know for themselves that what they're doing is important.

Where? People need to have a compelling glimpse of the future.

How? People need to know their part in how we accomplish the What, Why, and Where? They need to see the steps, maybe not perfectly, but clearly.

Which? The right people need to be placed in the right jobs, not just according to experience and availability, but more so from where God has gifted them.

This is something that must begin in the minds and hearts of the leadership and then they must be effective communicators/motivators to present this vision casting to the partners/team (some people like to call them "members of the church", but I'm not fond of that term).

Next post. . .I'll begin to take each one of these (What, Why, Where, How, and Which) and break them down one by one.